SYRIZA: The (not so) ‘fine’ letters of A. Tsipras’ statement about the pandemic

By Niki Zorba

With the exception of the operation of the Health system and the means of public transport, o Alexis Tsipras yesterday, responding as he had previously announcedι στο “discourse” by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, did not appear to have any serious disagreement on the substance with the new restrictive measures announced by the Prime Minister.

The Austrian-type “lockdown” and the unvaccinated police officers

Instead. His disagreements are that he probably still finds them more lenient than conditions require. He may have spoken of an “Austrian-type lockdown” for the unvaccinated, assessing the new framework of measures taken by the Government as such, but he did not seem to have any serious objections to that either. He used the parallel with Austria as an example to accuse Mr. Mitsotakis of inconsistency citing statements that the government is not going to copy the Austrian methods. Commonly, he does not even believe that the new tightening of the noose around the unvaccinated (by stopping in theaters, cinemas and gyms) constitutes any frightening qualitative change from what has already been decided.

In support of this, the president of SYRIZA in his own statement on the pandemic, said almost directly that even these measures would not have been announced by Mr. Mitsotakis, if he had not been “pressured” by his previously announced intention to respond immediately after the prime minister statements. This reasoning is part of Mr. Tsipras’s report on rapid tests in churches for which he claimed it took about 1700 dead for the government to finally come up with its own proposal.

No more “common acceptance”

Meanwhile, Mr. Tsipras reaffirmed yesterday that does not intend to enter into a process of seeking consent with the government. This officially ended after his proposal for the management of the pandemic to be assigned to a committee of experts that will be appointed jointly with the Government, which was obviously rejected by Maximos. Hence He asked for the removal of Thanos Plevris from the Ministry of Health speaking of the need to appoint a man of “prestige and acceptance”. Acceptance but not “common”. This ended as a “signal” to the government and Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The message was simple: You will choose him but at least make a serious choice.

He does not seek consensual solutions, but in the field of the pandemic, at least, he has decided to stay in the line of “militant but responsible opposition”. Hence he excelled the correctness of the Mitsotakis decision for vaccination certificates with an expiration date seven months after the date of the second installment. He even spoke of a pan-army in order to convince those who have not even done Aidosi yet, those who are completely unvaccinated.

In the midst of his own proposals: Alexis Tsipras went half a step further talking about tightening measures against unvaccinated police officers . Half and rather timid after he diligently avoided mentioning the term “obligation” leaving the proposal for austerity meteoric. It will show if he intends to become more specific in the near future.